The intent of this blog is to highlight areas of the book collecting world that are of interest to me. Henry Altemus Books, the authors- Wayne Whipple, George Peck (and his "Bad Boy"), Hezekiah Butterworth, Jacob Abbott- juvenile series books of the 19th and 20th centuries and book/publisher ephemera. I hope there is something for all collectors here.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Altemus' Circus Boys Series Dust Jackets

The earliest editions of this five volume Henry Altemus Company published series are hard to find with dust jackets. The books published before 1915 had the brown uncoated dust jackets which tend to be quite brittle. The later jackets of Format 2 and Format 3 have the white coated paper.

Teddy Tucker and Phil Forrest travel with the circus and have the usual incredible adventures that most likely can only be found within the pages of juvenile fiction. The books were written by Frank Gee Patchin (who also wrote the Pony Rider Boys Series) using the pseudonym of Edgar B. P. Darlington.

http://henryaltemus.com/series/series8.htm

1 Circus Boys on the Flying Rings 1910 2 Circus Boys Across the Continent 1911 3 Circus Boys in Dixie Land 1911 4 Circus Boys on the Mississippi 1912 5 Circus Boys on the Plains 19206 Circus Boys at the Top (not published)

Several different covers/dust jackets were used during this series' publishing history. The Format 1 dust jackets have just been added to the henryaltemus.com database.On the First Edition jacket (above) both both boys have entirely orange uniforms whereas the later First Format jacket (below) is different. In the latter jacket the boy standing on the rings has a black uniform. This jacket design was used until about 1915.

Beginning in about 1915 and ending in 1924 the line drawn dust jacket has a clown pictured on its cover. The later jacket in this format has brown lettering.

From 1924 until the end of this series' run in the early 1930's the dust jacket cover was a multicolored pictorial one with a circus panorama.

This series was reprinted by Saalfield and Company in 1934 as set #1353 after Henry Altemus went out of business. All five books were sold separately as well as in boxed sets of (any) three. These reprints were published for a number of years. The dust jacket is identical to that of the last Altemus format.

For over 30 plus years I have been collecting Henry Altemus books, juvenile series books, 19th century juvenile books, publishers' ephemera, etc. I hope to share some of interesting things I have learned here.